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South Dakota State University Open PRAIRIE: Open Public Research Access Institutional Repository and Information Exchange Cooperative Extension Circulars: 1917-1950 SDSU Extension 11-1932 Reading in the Home: Knowing America Through Books - Third Years Leora J. Lewis Mary A. Dolve Follow this and additional works at: http://openprairie.sdstate.edu/extension_circ Recommended Citation Lewis, Leora J. and Dolve, Mary A., "Reading in the Home: Knowing America Through Books - Third Years" (1932). Cooperative Extension Circulars: 1917-1950. Paper 329. http://openprairie.sdstate.edu/extension_circ/329 This Circular is brought to you for free and open access by the SDSU Extension at Open PRAIRIE: Open Public Research Access Institutional Repository and Information Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Cooperative Extension Circulars: 1917-1950 by an authorized administrator of Open PRAIRIE: Open Public Research Access Institutional Repository and Information Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. • Extension Circular 330 November, 1932 ( Reading in the Home Knowing America Through Books Third Year Books and a Comfortable Chair are a Good Substitute for Travel SOUTH DAKOTA STATE COLLEGE EXTENSION SERVICE C. Larsen, Director t Brookings, S. D. Published and distributed under Acts of Congress, May 8 and June 30, 1914, by the Agricultural Extension Service of South Dakota State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, Brookings, C. Larsen, director, U. S. Department of Agricul­ ture cooperating. Reading in the Home Knowing America Through Books Third Year By Leora J. Lewis, Director, South Dakota Free Library Commission Mary A. Dolve, Supervisor, H?me Extension Work, State College Most people are bound more or less in their outlook upon life, by the limitations of their own horizons. The man who has always lived in an eastern industrial town forms his opinions as to the country's needs from his knowledge of those changes which would make for better trade con­ ditions or an improved standard of living for the industrial worker. The city resident is concerned largely with matters of urban improvement. Housing and transportation problems are vital with him, also questions of sanitation, more adequate police protection, etc. In all probability neither of these meu knows much o! agricultural problems. Plenty of fresh air and space and the opportunity to raise clean, wholesome food makes farm life look like a paradise and there is no knowl­ edge nor appreciation of the hard work which goes into successful farm­ ing, the uncertainty of the market for produce and the constant fight against weather conditions, insect pests and blights. The farmer on the other hand, has little idea of what it would mean to work without adequate air, sunlight or space and often but remotely un­ derstands the economic problems of industry. A Varied Citizenship.-Our national differences are not all due to varying occupational interests. We have three races, black, white and red, each distinctly different from the others and the two darker races absolute­ ly dependent for their well being and advancement upon the sympathy and understanding of the white race. We also h::;,ve a citizenship which includes people from every race and nationality in ihe world. Some of these peo · ple are so scattered and assimilated that they have no separate and dis­ tinct entity; others live in groups of their own kind forming small foreign· cities within our larger American cities, or making up rural colonies in different sections of the country. Sympathetic Understanding Through Books.-It is a duty of citizen­ ship and a fascinating study as well to try to gain some understanding of these various groups of Americans. The more one can travel, the easier it is to broaden one's sympathies but for most people a knowledge of what lies beyond their own country or state has to come largely from books rather than from personal contacts. Fortunately there are in the United States a large number of writers each of whom is trying to interpret for the rest of the world some par­ ticular one of these racial or sectional groups. These men and women are using various literary mediums of expression. Some few of them try to tell the story in poetry; others use drama. Some content themselves by offering simple narratives of their own travels, while others write of the lives of men and women who are typical of their kind. Since to most people the novel is the most popular form of literature, it is not strange that books of fiction make up the major part of this re­ gional literature. The Local Color Novel.-There are many difficulties in the way of writing a successful local color novel. As a rule, the writer must be some READING IN THE HOME 3 ( one-who has lived in the section which serves as his background and who knows the people and the problems from the inside. An outsider rarely gets the right flavor in his story no matter how conscientiously he works at his interpretation. The novel cannot be written for propaganda pur­ poses or it fails in appeal, and the background or setting must appear as subordinate to the characters and the action of the story. In other words there must be that clever blending of background, characterization and plot which makes you feel as you read the novel that the action is not only true to the locality but that it couJd have taken place in no spot in the world other than the one f ea tu red by the writer. Among the outstanding local color novels of the present century are ''The Virginian'' that well known western story by Owen Wister, "The Time t;) Good books conveniently placed, a comfortable place to sit, and a good light help one to · · ' get_.enjoyment cut of a few minutes rest. of Man" by Elizabeth Maddox Roberts, which tells the story of the tenant farmer of the South, "The Harbor" by Ernest Poole, which uses the har­ bor of New York as a symbol of moJern unrest and. the negro stories of Julia Peterkin. Not a perfect novel, but a very interesting one is "Mamba's Daugh­ ters" by Du Bose Heyward. We analyse it here becaus� it is a good ex-: ample of a recent local color noveL "Mamba's Daughters" is a picture of a southern city, Charleston, South Carolina, and concerns itself with the xelationship of the two races, black and white, which make up its population. 4 S. D. EXTENSION CIRCULAR 330 The novel includes two distinct stories; the one has to do with Mamba, a Charleston water front negro, her gigantic daughter, Hagar, and her grand daughter, Lissa. Mamba and Hagar, have a mutual ambition to give Lissa an opportunity for musical training and social standing among a class of negroes with whom the two older women have never mingled, and in their sometimes blundering but always conscientious efforts, there is both humor and pathos. The second story is that of the romance of Saint Wentworth, the son of an impoverished but socially prominent Charleston family and Valerie Land, a New York girl who is the daughter of an artist. The negro characters are skillfully drawn: Mamba, the shrewd, indom­ itable grandmother, and Hagar with her huge body and naive childlike mind are outstanding characters in modern negro fiction. On the other hand, the white characters never seem to be real people. You can never quite understand Saint W:entworth's transition from an awkward, im­ practical boy to a forceful man of affafrs and his mother seems more like a shadow than a flesh and blood woman. It is in presenting his setting and background that Mr. Heyward has shown the greatest skill. He vividly pictures the social life of Charleston, explains the negro problem as it appears to a southerner, gives glimpses of negro life with its religious ferver, superstition, humor and utter aban­ don to the joys of life, and hints at the exploitation of negro labor. He in­ troduces perhaps too many stories and incidents which have no direct con­ nection with the plot but you forgive him for these because they do have a place in filling in the background. Since it gives a better understanding of modern southern life, broad­ ens one's sympathy for both negroes and whites and for the most part holds the reader's interest, "Mamba's Daughters" may be termed a suc­ cessful regional novel. Recent Books Which Interpret America DRAMA The Adding Machine, by Elmer L. Rice Depicts life in the machine. age. Beggar on Horseback, by George S. Kaufman and Marcus C. Connel1y A popular comedy satirizing big business. The Great Divide, by William Moody A play on the conflict of ideals between New England and the West. Green Pastures, by Marcus C. Connelly An interpretation of the Bible from the view point of the primitive type of negro. Hell-bent fer Heaven,, by Hatcher Hughes A drama of the Carolina mountains. Holiday, by Philip Barry Contrasts people whose chief aim is money-making and social promi­ nence with those who know the worth while things of life. Icebound, by Owen Davis The acrimonious bitterness of a northern Maine family over a possible inheritance. In Abraham's Bosom, by Paul Green Negro life in the South. READING IN THE HOME 5 ( The Inheritors, by Susan Glaspell Play of Iowa farm life. Miss Lulu Bett, by Zona Gale Pictures small town life and the transformation of the household drudge into an independent woman. One Act Plays, by Alice Brown Plays portraying homely New England life and characters. Street Scene, by Elmer L. Rice Tenement Life in New York City.

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